Through the looking glass By Sufani Garza
Leaving the comfort of my sanctuary and entering the world of noise and busyness, entering family dynamics, personalities, challenges, and duties, all gave me such a wonderful perspective on life. While away, I was also faced with how I felt to be separated from my creature comforts, my husband, my fur baby, and all the things I surround myself with. I stepped out of the monastery of my life to see who I was without all the things that make me comfortable.
My teacher once told me that it means more to be out in the world, versus hidden away, because out in the world you are challenged to put into practice everything you say you are, and then, you are faced with the difference to reconcile. I saw some interesting things in myself and even in my husband while away, and it made for a spectacular reckoning and healing for us both—and done so with joy and awareness!
When I was very young and had what I now know was a major trauma in my life, I recalled a trip away from my first husband, to be helped and sheltered by my parents. Things had gone very wrong in the marriage, and I was still a young woman myself. Poverty, drug abuse and emotional abandonment were all things I was experiencing from my first husband. During that time away with my parents, I received not one phone call to check on me, pregnant with our second, nor even his child. I was hurt by that very deeply. It remained part of my past that hurt me very much, but no longer a driving force of my life. As I went away this time, I felt the old sensitivity of that experience and the need to have a different experience with my current soulmate and wonderful husband of 18 years.
In turn, he was able to see his traumas as a witness to them too, as I did, and the way he responded to having someone important leave you (even while on vacation). What was so amazing about this experience is that we both came together to share the “witnessing” we both did while I was away, clearly seeing our younger selves, our layers, and talking about it.
Witnessing it, not as a collection of reactions, but simply to deepen our love for self, each other, and knowing of one another. Neither of us was triggered; we simply acknowledged the roots. We have become the witnesses of our lives both past and present. That is the result of ongoing Mastery work.
When we stop reacting, we begin seeing. When we begin seeing, we begin growing and truly living our best life, loving ourselves and then others more fully!